Infotainment - Car Computer

Last updated: October 20, 2023

Overview

Infotainment is a general term used to describe how a customer accesses vehicle settings, information, entertainment, climate controls, and audio. It has since grown to encompass navigation, connectivity, voice recognition, and (to a point) mobile app and mobile controls.

Starting from October 2021, Model 3 will be produced with the AMD Ryzen processor in the Infotainment system.

Note

For the Intel Atom based Infotainment System, see Infotainment - Atom

Infotainment Evolution

The evolution of the Tesla Infotainment system continues with the introduction of the AMD Ryzen system on chip and the carry-over of the gen3 Gateway. Before delving into the operation of this new generation of Infotainment, take a moment to review the nomenclature surrounding evolution of Infotainment up to this point.

Customer Facing​ / Central Processing Unit (CPU)	Model S/X NVIDIA Tegra​	Model S/X Intel Atom​	Model 3/Y Intel Atom​	Model S/X/3/Y AMD Ryzen​
Configuration Nomenclature ​	mcu​	mcu_transition​	ice​	infoz​
Software Nomenclature ​	cid​	ice​	ice​	infoz​
Gateway​	classic​	classic​	gen3​	gen3​
Updater​	cid-updater​	sx-updater​	ice-updater​	zen-updater​
Toolbox Article Tag​	[Info-Tegra]​	[Info-Atom]​	[Info-Atom]​	[Info-Ryzen]​

The key changes between the Intel Atom Infotainment system on Model 3 and the AMD Ryzen Infotainment system are the following:

• AMD Ryzen System-on-chip, 8-core CPU
• Quectel Global Connectivity Card

Car Computer

The car computer is mounted on the firewall and coolant hoses pointing into the frunk area/wet side.

Car computer location

The car computer consist of a cold plate, top and bottom cover, and four printed circuit board assemblies:​

• Quectel-GL connectivity card
• Ryzen infotainment board
• Autopilot hardware 3.2​

The connectivity card is a daughter board of the Ryzen infotainment board. ​

The Autopilot board sits under the bottom cover and connects to the Ryzen infotainment board via a gigabit ethernet jumper.

The bottom cover also acts as the car computer's mounting bracket and ground path to the body in white.

Car computer main component overview

Ryzen Infotainment Board

The top of the Ryzen infotainment board is the side that faces the cold plate. This side of the board contains the following major components:

• AMD Ryzen CPU
• Gateway
• Audio Digital Signal Processor (aDSP)
• Bluetooth/Wi-Fi module
• Ethernet switch
• Gateway microSD card reader
• SIM card reader

The bottom of the Ryzen infotainment board is the side facing the top cover and contains the following major components:

• Connections to vehicle harness
• Connectivity card connector and mounting
• Real time clock battery

Gateway

The gateway is a microcontroller which contains three CPU's (2 160 MHZ 32-bit and 1 80MHz 32-bit), 6MB flash memory and 768 KB of RAM. The Gateway serves many functions of not only the Infotainment System but the entire vehicle.

• Routing: Routes CAN data which enables module communication between CAN buses.
• Vehicle Configurations: Stores vehicle configuration data on in on-chip NVRAM.
• Logging: Records selective CAN signal data and stores on its microSD card.

• Update: Controls and determines required vehicle states, securely fetches and distributes packages for each updatable module, and is specific to InfoZ selection of kernel bank to boot the UI.

• Touch Via Gateway: Analyzes touch data from the Display, and forwards it to the UI.

Gateway Communication

The gen3 Gateway communicates with several modules over a variety of protocols.

• Ethernet switch via a Reduced Media-Independent Interface (RMII).
• Touchscreen over I2C to a Multiplexer which splits the signal with Ryzen.
• MicroSD card over a Secure Digital Input/Output (SDIO) connection.
• Audio Digital Signal Processor (ADSP) over a Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI).
• Ryzen over a Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter (UART) connection.

The gen3 Gateway also benefits from some dedicated wake lines:

• Ring line from the Quectel (LTE-GTW-RING).
• Wake line from the Audio Digital Signal Processor (ADSP-GTW-WAKE).
• Wake line to the Audio Digital Signal Processor (GTW-ADSP-WAKE).

Gateway Communication Overview

Gateway microSD Reader and Card

The gateway uses a 16GB microSD card that is serviceable and can be accessed via a provision in the car computer's cold plate.

The microSD card can be formatted over a local connection while the vehicle is in Park and a Gateway alert for the microSD is present using the PROC_ICE_X_FORMAT-SD-CARD action.

The card is spring ejected by release of the locking tab. The locking tab will automatically engage during installation once the spring ejection force is overcome.

Gateway microSD Card Eject / Inject

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